Edward Pococke

Edward Pococke (baptised 8 November 160410 September 1691) was an English Orientalist and biblical scholar.

Early life The son of Edward Pococke (died 1636), vicar of Chieveley in Berkshire, he was brought up at Chieveley and educated from a young age at Lord Williams's School, Thame, Oxfordshire. He matriculated at Magdalen Hall, Oxford in 1619, and later was admitted to Corpus Christi College, Oxford (scholar in 1620, fellow in 1628).

At this time William Laud was both Bishop of London and chancellor of the University of Oxford, and Pococke was recognised as one who could help his schemes for enriching the university. Laud founded a Chair of Arabic at Oxford, and invited Pococke to fill it.

Return to England When he returned to England, Laud was in the Tower of London, but had taken the precaution to make the Arabic chair permanent. Pococke does not seem to have been an extreme churchman or to have been active in politics. His rare scholarship and personal qualities brought him influential friends, foremost among these being John Selden and John Owen. Through their offices he obtained, in 1648, the chair of Hebrew at the University of Oxford on the death of John Morris, though he lost the emoluments of the post soon after, and did not recover them until the Restoration. Pococke had a long-standing interest in the subject, which he had talked over with Grotius at Paris on his way back from Constantinople. and Thomas Carlyle exposed some "pious" lies in the missionary work by Grotius translated by Pococke, which were omitted from the Arabic text.

The theological works of Pococke were collected, in two volumes, in 1740, with a curious account of his life and writings by Leonard Twells.

The Pococke Garden of Christ Church, Oxford is named after him, and contains the Pococke Tree, an Oriental Plane planted by him, possibly from seed he collected around 1636. This tree, with its circa nine metre girth, may be the inspiration for the Tumtum tree of Lewis Carol's poem Jabberwocky.